For ‘Birthright’ tourists, hill above Gaza is fun like the Grand Canyon

Max Blumenthal has a savage post (with many great photos by Kali Harper, including this one) about a visit to the "Hill of Shame" outside Sderot where Israelis sat to watch the Gaza assault. He just visited the spot, and this is what he saw. Please go to his site and look at the pictures of these atrocity-tourists…

While [guide Eric] Yellin described conditions inside Gaza and discussed the rocketing of nearby communities, a bus filled with students from Argentina on a Birthright Israel-style tour pulled up to the hill.

The students rushed out of the bus and began taking photos in front of the Gaza landscape as though they were at the Grand Canyon. I asked a group of them what they thought of the people living inside the Gaza Strip. A girl looked at me, then at our group, then remarked about us in Spanish to her friends, “They’re Palestinians. Let’s get out of here.” Strangely, there were no Palestinians in our group; it consisted mostly of white people from the United States.

All of the sudden, a group of soldiers from the Givati Brigade motored up the hill to meet the Argentinian students. As soon as the soldiers emerged from their jeeps, they were surrounded by giggling girls eager to climb all over them and their jeeps. The guys, who were wearing the IDF t-shirts and hats sold in Jerusalem tourist shops, lined up for photos with the troops, who enthusiastically obliged…

Besides learning fanciful and discredited notions about the usefulness of fortress Israel in a dark, Jew-hating world, Birthright tourists are taught to worship the power of the IDF and are taught that the army is in fact defending “the Jewish people.” Meanwhile they learn nothing about the culture of Palestinians and are expressly forbidden from meeting them. Instead of meeting Israeli peace activists like Eric Yellin, they receive a lecture from an Orientalist huckster (check out one of Birthright’s favorite speakers here) about Palestinian “incitement” and the threat of radical Islam. In their free time, Birthright tourists are urged to enjoy a Goldstar-sodden, Porky’s-style bachannal in the hope that they will someday contribute to a spike in the Jewish birthrate. Sleeping with a soldier, whether male or female, is especially encouraged.

Blumenthal’s entire post includes a glimpse of Peter Beinart lamenting the troubles of liberal Zionism, and the struggle of the two-state solution, and Blumenthal’s comment about how irrelevant this inter-ethnic ordeal is becoming to Palestinians in the audience.

43 Responses

Gosh, I can already hear Witty cranking out a post bashing Phil Weiss and Max Blumenthal and running interference for these Arab-hating tourists from here.

Because students from Argentina on spring break have that coveted “right of return” that obviously, Palestinians that grew up in Najd (that’s what Sderot used to be called, Witty, before Jewish real estate investors from New York and elsewhere came along) for generations don’t.

Considering how conditioned these tourists are for racism, they’d fit in moving to Witty’s suburb in the US moreso than to the Middle East, anyway, huh.

The only consolations, if that, is that 100 years from now visiting that spot will be akin to visiting the Little Big Horn or someplace similar. And do we have any indication if the folks in the image have any political consciousness or motivation to their “tourism’?

Are you saying you want to wipe Israel off the map? Are you actively working on a nuclear bomb? A hidden facility in your shed perhaps? Our translators fluent in the Swanghili tongue are affirmative. (sarcasm people, sarcasm)

Exactly, TGIA, zionism is a political doctrine. We don’t need to kill nazis to dissuade people from being nazis, just make sure nazism is exposedfor what it is. Few will be nazis then, and those that do are easily neutralised when they start getting really ugly. The old jim crowism of the american south is also now well on its way to total marginalization (despite constant zionist attempts at revival) and will soon be anathema to the point nazism is now. This is how to treat the zionist movement, expose it bigotry, ethnic supremacy and crimes for what they are and human nature will see to its demise.

They all get lovely parting gifts, and a bus ticket.
Hey Schwarztzman, they’re your buddies, you take care of them. I realise a lot of them may end up in America, so tell them before they land that we have laws here, and you can’t go around stealing peoples land and houses.
And if you could improve their manners a little too, they will fit right in.
In fact, I’m sure they will find American jails quite comfortable.

Remember those american tourists in israel filmed last year making all sorts of racist comments? It seems the rubbish is very consistent in its lack of any humanity. One would think the countries these tourists come from would be better off without these people.

This Birthright Israel thing is so contrived and so stale. Now a Birthright Palestine, on the other hand, would be very moving and very dramatic. Survivors of the Nakba should be allowed to visit their home towns while there is still time.

Ok, so they won’t fly you to Palestine for free, but it still sounds like a worthwhile program: Birthright Palestine.
“A project of the Palestine Center for National Strategic Studies, Birthright Palestine “is meant to gather first generation, western‐born Palestinians (over the age of 18‐years old) in their ancestral homeland, so that they can reunite and witness firsthand how their brethren are living under illegal Israeli military occupation.”

The program is made‐up of four major components, education, tourism, hospitality, and volunteering, and was created to maintain Palestinian unity on an international level and to make foreign‐born Palestinians feel at home in their homeland.link to kabobfest.com

So Israel took these photos? I don’t understand what you are saying? They were taken by Kali Harper. How does he/she represent Israel? If anyone takes a picture of a girl’s ass in Israel that is a poor reflection on the state.

This isn’t the Gaza strip ppl, it is ok to show some skin in these parts.

C’mon now Schwartzman! It’s a light-hearted comment..There’s no dangerous political message in saying that this butt is significantly centered..As for some Israeli ads we’ve seen worse..Remember the fellatio touristic ad?

Beinart had lambasted the ossified Jewish establishment of Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz and David Harris for selling young Jews on an anti-democratic, occupying and increasingly racist Israel, turning them off to Zionism in the process. Then in the next breath he offered high praise for Birthright Israel.

“…In their free time, Birthright tourists are urged to enjoy a Goldstar-sodden, Porky’s-style bachannal in the hope that they will someday contribute to a spike in the Jewish birthrate. Sleeping with a soldier, whether male or female, is especially encouraged.”

You have to learn to appreciate that open Israeli mentality that introduces religion into everything. Sleep with a soldier and help Israel in its demographic battles; it used to be just about planting trees and now it’s about planting soldiers.

Mondoweiss in Your Inbox

Get Mondoweiss delivered directly to your inbox every morning and stay up to date with our independent coverage of events in the Middle East!

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.